


Mitwelt

by darlingred1



Series: Red [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, BDSM, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Femdom, POV Alternating, Plotty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-14 05:25:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14763461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingred1/pseuds/darlingred1
Summary: “We’re out of time,” Loki said through gritted teeth, closing the distance between them until his breath wisped over her face. “He is coming.”





	1. Vision

**Author's Note:**

> This series' version of Infinity War. There are movie spoilers here because I wound up using quite a lot of its scenes and plot points, but I also changed a lot, including the ending. I would not recommend reading if you haven't seen the movie yet.

Natasha dressed in her catsuit and vest, which went on more easily and comfortably than she’d thought it would.

She hadn’t worn this particular suit in years, although she’d continued to take it wherever she went, burying it at the bottom of whatever luggage she’d elected to carry at any given time.

At some point she’d come to think of it as the Black Widow’s outfit, and only the Black Widow would wear it—although, as Clint had jokingly told her more than once, it was nearly indistinguishable from all her other darkly colored, tight-fitting mission clothing.

Clint.

She closed her eyes with a sigh and leaned against the tiny bathroom sink in her tiny Chelsea apartment. She’d promised herself she would call him, and it was past time to do so. Steve had texted her not ten minutes ago, while she’d still been in the shower, washing off the sweat and other bodily fluids from her little dalliance with Loki that morning.

_Stay there_ , Steve had said. A short, simple message, not unusual for Steve—whose handle on twenty-first-century technology had lapsed without Tony’s aggressive encouragement—but still, something about the terseness struck her as wrong.

Thus, the Black Widow catsuit. Thus, the need to tell Clint what she had been doing (hiding) before all hell broke loose and he found out another way.

She lifted her head and peered at herself in the mirror, taking in her still-damp hair and the tightness around her mouth. Loki was elsewhere in the apartment, but she couldn’t hear him. Maybe he was still in bed, where he’d been last she checked. Wherever he was, he could stay there a little longer.

She knew several phone numbers Clint had used at one time or another, but she focused now on the burner he had contacted her with a few weeks ago.

She sent: _If you’re around, call._

In less than a minute, her cell was ringing in her hand. She answered.

“Where are you?” Clint demanded before she could manage a greeting. “I can be there in… Well, it depends on where you are, actually.”

She smiled, but it felt brittle. This was going to hurt him, hurt _them_ , and she had no illusions about that. This thing with Loki never should have gone as far as it had; she’d certainly never meant it to.

_But it did_ , she reminded herself, _and now you have to own up to it._

“I’m in New York,” she said, “but it’s not what you’re thinking. Or at least it isn’t yet.”

She talked, telling him everything in as much detail as she dared. From Loki stalking her across Europe and offering himself up to her for kinky sexual purposes, to Loki revealing the larger plot behind his attack on Earth and handing over the Tesseract to Steve.

She was matter-of-fact, her tone monotonous. She rejected the impulse to make excuses, to apologize, to do anything that might soften the reality of what she had done—willfully engaged in a sexual, sometimes-playful, and almost-friendly relationship with the man who had violated her best friend’s mind.

When she was done, Clint said nothing. She couldn’t even hear him breathing over the line, but still she waited patiently for him to process and respond.

Finally, he said, “I’m…not actually sure what I’m supposed to say to that.”

_No_ , she thought, holding in a sigh, _I don’t know either._ “You don’t have to,” she said. “You don’t need to say anything. But you need to know. If I royally screwed this up, if Loki is just playing me—”

He laughed, and it sounded harsh, grating. “You’re probably the best finder of bullshit I’ve ever met, Nat. And that you’re even acknowledging the possibility means he didn’t get to you like he…like he got to me. I’m guessing he’s the ‘bad decision’ you mentioned last time we talked.”

She winced. “How mad are you?”

He let his silence speak for him. It said awful, awful things. Eventually, he muttered, “Give me a bit,” and then he hung up.

Natasha set her phone beside the sink and allowed herself a minute to close her eyes, to breathe. All things considered, this wouldn’t be the worst clash they’d had. But it was the most personal, which made it more complicated, and frightening in a way that only the truly unfamiliar could be.

With her cell in hand, she opened the bathroom door and stepped into the hallway. The apartment was quiet, eerily so. _Maybe Loki fell back asleep_ , she thought.

But she peeked into the bedroom to find it empty, the bed made neatly. The indigo dildo they’d played with that morning was sitting on the nightstand, seeming to taunt her. On edge, suspicion prickling just under her skin, she searched the living room, kitchen, balcony, even the doorstep and the sidewalk outside, but there was no sign of Loki.

_Best finder of bullshit, my ass. He tricked me and he ran._

But why? Why come this far only to turn tail as soon as the other (former) Avengers got involved?

She was standing in the living room, considering her options, trying to get into Loki’s head and figure out his next move, when her cell phone rang. _Steve_ , said the screen. She answered.

“Is it safe for you to talk?” Steve asked. There was an urgency in his voice that she didn’t like.

“I’m in the same place we met yesterday. Why?”

“We have a problem. Vision’s off the grid.”

It was a good thing she’d already dressed for a problem, then. “Since when?”

“Tony says he turned off his transponder a few days ago. Apparently, it was only a mild concern at first, but now…”

“Now that we know there’s a Titan who wants to rip the stone out of his head and use it to destroy half the universe,” she finished. “Yeah. I got it. Where was Vision when he went offline? That’ll at least give us somewhere to start looking.”

A whoosh of air rustled the back of her hair, followed by: “No need. Your Vision is in Scotland.”

Natasha spun, unsheathing and brandishing one of her taser batons at Loki, who threw up his hands in a placating gesture and stepped out of her reach. Like her, he was dressed for battle, in his green and gold armor, wearing a horned helmet that looked slightly smaller than she remembered.

“Did he say Scotland?” Steve said, but she barely heard him.

“Where in Scotland?” she demanded.

Loki’s smile was bleak, and there was a brightness in his eyes that she’d grown to recognize and hate. “A place called Edinburgh. I can direct you precisely to his location if you’d prefer. He’s with the witch.”

“Tell him she has a name,” said Steve, but again Natasha ignored him in favor of her own question.

“How do you know where he is?”

“He has the Mind Stone,” Loki said. “I shouldn’t like to lose sight of something so powerful.”

The edge in his tone suggested what he thought of them for doing exactly that, and Natasha let the heat of her glare answer for her. He only shook his head, grabbed her outstretched arm, and twisted it away from him as though it were a low-hanging twig. She bit back a hiss of pain and managed to keep her grip on the baton through sheer force of will.

“We’re out of time,” Loki said through gritted teeth, closing the distance between them until his breath wisped over her face. “He is coming.”

_He._ They weren’t talking about Vision, she knew, but before she could respond, Steve was speaking again.

“I’m headed for the quinjet. We’re bringing Vision in. Suit up and get ready to go.”

“Already ahead of you, Rogers,” she said, and ended the call.

Loki was breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring with every inhale. He was agitated, clearly, but whether it was fear or anger at the root of it, she couldn’t tell. When she wrenched her arm back, he blinked as though startled, waved his hand, and immediately the faint ache—both from the twist and his hold itself—eased. Magic, she guessed, but there were more pressing issues.

“So you were in Scotland just now?” she asked.

“No.” He heaved the helmet off, and it appeared to evaporate in the air. His hair was neat, slicked back away from his face. “I was in Norway.”

“The Asgardian refugee camp? With Thor?”

He bared his teeth and let out a groan of frustration. She thought it was directed at her at first, until he said, viciously, “Evidently, Thor is no longer on Midgard.”

That was certainly unexpected. She slipped her baton back in place while she processed that. “Why? Where is he?”

“Because he is an idiot!” The burst of words, loud and fierce, seemed to surprise him just as much as her. He took a lurching step backward and turned away, gaze flitting around the room as though something in it could soothe whatever had rattled him. “Heimdall reported that several ships were traveling swiftly towards us.”

“Heimdall, that’s…the gatekeeper of Asgard?”

He waved one hand dismissively. “He is all-seeing. There is little throughout the Nine Realms that remains hidden from him should he seek it.”

_Except, apparently, you_ , she thought, remembering what Steve had said, but let Loki continue.

“Thor bade that he turn his eye away from us, in search of possible threats.”

“And he saw Thanos,” Natasha surmised. “Coming for us.”

Loki cringed but jerked his head in a nod. “And Thor, of course, Norns forbid that he remain sensible in the face of an imminent threat. Norns forbid he _stay where he is_ rather than leaping to challenge it.”

His voice was rising again, and he began to pace, his cape rippling near his ankles. He was scared, Natasha realized. He had wasted too much time after all, and now his pieces weren’t lined up, people not where they were meant to be, and fear had settled into him like a spike that was far too big for him to disguise.

Then his meaning sank in, and she went cold at the thought that Thor had gone alone to confront a Titan. “Wait,” she said. “Thor went to—”

“Nidavellir,” he spat, as though the word meant anything to her. “Of course he did. Because another hammer is precisely what he needs when the last one failed him so spectacularly. The dark energy that Heimdall must have conjured to—”

“Slow down.” She understood the gist of it, she thought, even if the details eluded her, but in this case the details didn’t matter. Thor wasn’t in any immediate danger, and he would be back. “Okay? Just calm down.”

She expected him to bristle at her attempt to mollify him, but when she approached him, hands up, not unlike a person might approach a wild animal, he simply stopped his pacing and waited until she was near enough to place her palms on his chest. He swayed into her touch, surprising her even more.

_If he’s this far off his game from nothing but anticipation_ , she thought grimly, _it’s even worse than I thought._

“One of your lovely strikes across the face would not go amiss, I think,” he said.

His tone was light, and he’d asked for it rather than provoked her, but that he was asking at all… The sirens in Natasha’s mind blared more loudly, but she did not give in to panic as a rule, least of all when it was warranted.

“Most people don’t ask to be punched in the face by me,” she said, matching his easy tone. “But because you asked so nicely…”

She slapped one cheek and then the other, putting about half of her strength behind it, just enough that his head swiveled from side to side with each blow. His cheeks reddened immediately. He seemed to be focusing intently on something inward, his jaw clenching and his eyes squeezing shut.

His voice was harsh, more than a little mocking, when he said, “You can do better, Agent Romanov.”

_We don’t have time for this_ , she thought, but neither did they have time for her to argue with him. She hit him with her closed fists this time. The sick _crack_ of her knuckles striking skin was more familiar, more comforting, than she would have liked it to be.

“We’ve talked about what you call me and how you ask for things,” she said, and though she wanted to shake out the pain in her hands, she wouldn’t show weakness now. “That wasn’t it. I’ll remember that for later.”

A smile flickered across his lips, weak and crooked but still there. She didn’t doubt that he’d caught her deliberate wording, the reassurance there—that there would be a later, there was no question about it—but he didn’t acknowledge it. He pressed his fingers to his bruising cheeks, opened his eyes again, and said nothing.

“We need to go,” Natasha told him.

Loki’s mouth thinned, and she thought that he seemed to be chewing on something, that he intended to respond with something more substantial than he ended up saying, which was simply “Yes, I suppose we do.”

 

* * *

 

Natasha took over Steve’s place in the cockpit, since she was the better pilot. He hovered somewhat awkwardly behind her, dividing his attention between her and Loki, who had seated himself in the cabin like he didn’t have a care in the world. His helmet was back in place, and his red, bruising cheeks were pale again.

“Where’s Tony?” she asked.

“He and Rhodey are covering up for us and holding down the fort, according to him,” Steve answered. “You ask me, he doesn’t want to spend a few hours in the air with two fugitives and a mass murderer.”

“Can’t exactly blame him,” she said.

“Sure I can,” he said. He probably meant to match her dry humor, but she could hear the sharp line of tension in his voice.

“Did you two fight again?”

“Not as badly as last time, don’t worry.” Before she could point out that that wasn’t exactly reassuring, he said, more loudly, “Loki. You said Thanos wouldn’t send the Chitauri again. But he does have an army?”

“He has power,” Loki said. He sounded distant, contemplative. Natasha turned away from the controls, and found him staring at the wall opposite him as though he wasn’t seeing it at all. “There’ll be no shortage of people, or creatures, eager to serve him for simply a taste of that power.”

“Like you?” Steve asked, although his tone was more curious than accusing.

Loki didn’t seem offended. “And worse.”

Natasha translated that in her head. _Loki has a sense of self-preservation. He can be appealed to and bargained with. That might not be the case with whatever we’re about to deal with._

“He will not be alone,” Loki continued, “if that is your meaning. If he is there at all, at least initially. He is…not the sort to seek anything himself when others might do it for him.”

“Because that went so well for him last time,” she couldn’t help but say.

Loki inclined his head as if to concede her point. “Be that as it may, unless a great deal has changed since we last spoke, he has followers who are far, far more devoted than I ever was.” He looked to Steve abruptly, and for a moment she thought his too-calm demeanor might crack again. “The Tesseract is secure?”

“As secure as it can be,” Steve said, enough of an evasion and a dismissal she half expected it to get Loki’s hackles up, but Loki subsided easily, his calm still firmly in place. “I want to hear more about these followers,” Steve added.

Natasha turned back to the controls to monitor their route to Scotland while Loki began to speak about Thanos’s many adopted children.

 

* * *

 

Loki was right about one thing at least: Thanos didn’t come himself. Natasha had hoped they’d beat him to Vision completely, but they arrived in Edinburgh, at the location Loki directed them, to find a battle already in progress—Wanda and Vision not quite holding their own against two of who she assumed were members of the Black Order.

Loki had provided names, descriptions, strategies, plenty of information in the quinjet, but little of that seemed to matter as she threw herself into the fight. Some part of her spared half a moment to wish for someone else on their side, someone whose battle form and senses she knew and trusted completely, unlike Loki, but even that faded quickly as adrenaline surged and instinct took over, her training rising to the forefront.

It was over in a matter of minutes. She’d injured one of the two— _Glaive_ , she thought now, watching him clutch his wound and gasp—but only tired the other, a woman, who must have been Midnight.

“We don’t want to kill you,” Natasha told them as they huddled on the ground in front of her. Steve and Loki flanked her, Steve brandishing the weapon he’d stolen from Glaive and Loki his knives. “But we will.”

“You’ll never get the chance again,” Midnight said, and then she and Glaive were gone in a flash of blue light, taking the weapon from Steve’s hands with them. Their ship, a ring-shaped mass of metal, rumbled and streaked from the night sky.

“They’ll be back,” Loki said, as though there were any question about that.

Natasha sheathed her batons, and Steve said, “We need to get Vision out of here.”

Vision could barely walk on his own and leaned heavily on Wanda as they returned to the quinjet.

“Why is he here?” Wanda asked, jerking her head in Loki’s direction.

Loki grinned, and if Natasha hadn’t seen him earlier, hadn’t recognized his fear, she would have thought he was unfazed, even cheerful, about the entire situation. “I see I need no introduction.”

“He brought us information,” Natasha answered her, “and offered us assistance in exchange for clemency.”

To call that an oversimplification would have been a vast understatement, and Loki’s and Steve’s side-eyed glances said as much, but Natasha only shook her head at them while Wanda and Vision got settled in the jet.

“Information about what’s happening in New York?” Wanda said.

Natasha froze, as did Steve, although Loki sighed like he was only slightly dismayed to hear what he already knew was true.

“What’s happening in New York?” Steve said. “Now?”

“We saw it on the news,” Vision said. “Seconds before we were attacked.”

Each word seemed to take a great deal out of him, and golden electric currents were passing through his body intermittently. Glaive and Midnight had nearly gotten the Mind Stone, perhaps had already done something to it. They needed to get him back to Tony as soon as possible.

“It looked like the same ship,” Wanda added.

Natasha swore, and Steve dove for the cockpit, reaching for the comm device. She took out her phone. If Wanda and Vision had seen it on the news, then it must’ve already hit the internet too.

It had. Social media was brimming with blurry photos and videos of a ring-shaped spaceship in the sky, mentions of Iron Man and destruction, and messages of panic. Another battle waged in New York, but this one was still ongoing.

“No one’s responding,” Steve said.

Natasha became intensely aware of Loki standing silently in the middle of the jet, watching her. There was wariness, expectation, in the line of his shoulders.

_The Tesseract_ , she thought. Had Steve given it to Tony? Was Tony fighting right now to keep it out of Thanos’s hands?

“We won’t make it in time,” Natasha said. “We’re too far away.” Despite that, she was hurrying to join Steve in the cockpit, to fiddle with the controls, to try to find a way to reach New York faster.

Then Loki cleared his throat and said, “Perhaps it’s best if I take my leave now.”

Natasha jerked upright, spinning around to stare at him. He was still watching her, his lips thin and tight. “Excuse me?” she said, and though Steve echoed her more dangerously, Loki didn’t take his eyes from her.

“Thor should have returned by now,” he said. “It doesn’t take this long to forge a hammer, even one as powerful as his. Something is wrong.”

“Earth is under attack,” Steve said in a tone as angry as any Natasha had ever heard from him. “The very attack you warned us about. The stone that you brought us is in danger—”

Loki cut him off, seeming utterly unruffled. “You have one stone in this very jet. If you continue to protect it, that is one stone that the Titan does not have, and enough to waylay his plans at least a while longer. Long enough for me to retrieve my brother, your teammate, and return.”

“How are you supposed to get to him?” Natasha asked, stalking closer. “I thought he wasn’t on Earth anymore.”

Loki smiled, and something struck her then, some sort of deep, instinctual sense that something was not right. “This is all terribly inconvenient, I realize,” he said smoothly. “And more than slightly suspicious. But I will be back. I promise you that. If for nothing else than I might feel your cock again.”

“Loki,” she said, and sprinted for him, trying to grab him before his gold shimmery magic engulfed him as it normally did. But her fingers slipped right through his shoulder, and then he vanished as though he’d never been there at all. “Shit.”

A _beep_ sounded from the cockpit, signaling that someone was trying to comm them. She turned and found that Steve had already gone to answer it, and Vision and Wanda were both staring at her, the former looking tired and the latter wide-eyed.

“I, um,” said Wanda. “We’ll just…pretend we didn’t hear any of that.”

Natasha supposed it was a sign of how rattled she was that it took her a moment to understand. “I’d appreciate that.”

She passed them, joining Steve at the controls. He wasn’t speaking any longer, the communication device sitting silently in his hand, so she asked, “Was that Tony?”

“Rhodey,” he said.

“About New York?”

“The Tesseract.” His jaw was tight, and he looked at her with cold determination in his eyes. “Apparently Loki just showed up and took it.”


	2. Forge

Loki stumbled free from the portal, feeling not terribly unlike he had been tossed about by the Hulk. He had hoped, in the sort of nebulous and starry-eyed way a child hopes, he might be able to coax the Tesseract into responding to him as it had on the Statesman, but he’d had time, then, to prepare, to gather and focus his magic.

World walking, too, could have been accomplished more smoothly had he had time to do it properly, but he had not. He had done it hastily, sloppily, blindly lurching his way on the path between realms, and now he felt tired and ragged as he stood in place and examined his surroundings.

Thor had traveled to Nidavellir before—something to do with Mjolnir, when Odin had bestowed it upon him—but Loki never had, too bitter even then over the way Odin favored Thor to think of accompanying them on the journey, and too bored by anything the realm had to offer to visit it on his own later.

He suspected it was not meant to look like this, though. Dark. Silent. Abandoned. The air was heavy, and smelt of fire and death. Something of the desolation of the place, the desperation he sensed when he knelt and rested his bare hand on one of the pieces of broken metal littering the floor, made his gut twist.

_Thanos was here_ , he thought, although he could not fathom why. What would the Mad Titan want with the dwarves? And where was Thor?

Then he heard a great _clang_ , and a flash of light grew to a luminous beam in his peripheral vision. _The forge._ Apparently it was not so abandoned after all.

He followed the walkway, and when he heard a shout—a masculine voice but not Thor’s—he looked up, tracking the stream of light to its source.

And came to a dead stop, nearly biting his tongue in two.

It was a considerable distance between where he stood and where the light of a star was passing through a metal ring, powering the forge, but not considerable enough that he could not see the manlike shape at the ring’s center or identify the familiar silhouette.

“Idiot!” Loki said. Then, using the full capacity of his lungs: “ _Thor_!”

But Thor could not hear, nor would he respond sensibly even if he could, knowing him. He was going to kill himself, standing in the full heat of a star, and for what? To forge a hammer he would no longer be alive to use?

Loki needed to get him down from there, but he couldn’t see a way to reach him quickly. He spun an illusion instead, a vision of himself telling Thor to stop this madness and feigning an attack if necessary, but in that same moment, the _clang_ resounded again, the light cut off, and Thor’s body fell.

Loki ran, paying little attention to his surroundings, focused solely on reaching his brother. Thor was not flailing, was not moving at all in fact as he plunged downwards. _He is dead_ , whispered a terrible voice in Loki’s mind. But Thor was not. He could not be; Loki wouldn’t stand for it.

He called his magic and sent it towards Thor, catching and lowering him gradually to the walkway, where Loki fell to his knees beside him.

Thor was burnt badly, his skin blistered and smelling of char. He was breathing but only just, and his eye didn’t so much as flutter as Loki said his name and cradled his head, weaving healing magic. Thor’s blisters smoothed, his blackened flesh paled, yet he convulsed and let out a noise entirely too similar to a death rattle for Loki’s comfort.

“Brother, do not do this,” he said. “You did not survive Ragnarok to be felled by a forge of all things.”

The desperation he had sensed from the metal was in his throat now, nearly choking him, and it tasted faintly of guilt. _You did this_ , he thought. _You took the first step down this path, and look at where it has brought you._ He traced runes on Thor’s bare forearm, winding magic under Thor’s skin, into his blood.

“He is dying,” came a voice not far from them. A dwarf. Loki did not recognize him, but then again, why would he?

“Thank you for your input,” Loki snarled. “I hadn’t realized. Yet you allowed this, knowing full well even Thor Odinson could not take the full force of a star.”

“He insisted on it,” said the dwarf.

Of course he did. But Loki said nothing, clutching Thor’s body to him, putting everything into his magic. It was working, it seemed, in the sense that Thor was not quite dying, but neither was he living. His lungs worked, his heart beat, but only because Loki forced them to do so. He could not keep this up for much longer.

“He needs…” The dwarf hurried a distance away, and Loki heard something like metal crashing on metal, something cracking apart, followed by the dwarf’s furious mutterings about a handle.

_Yes_ , Loki realized, lifting his head. _His hammer._ He seized the solution, and because the dwarf was simply knocking things about, making little progress, Loki conjured a handle himself. Or he hoped he did. He focused his mind on a sturdy, elegant block of wood, whispered the words for the conjuration, and whatever appeared he hurled towards the dwarf because he could do nothing else. His energy was draining, as surely as trickles of rainwater into a river.

Perhaps they would both die here. Their bodies wasting away on Nidavellir with a single dwarf, a dying star, and a crippled forge.

Then the fingers of Thor’s outstretched hand twitched, and the newly constructed weapon flew into it, and Loki could breathe again. He let the magic return to its source but kept his arms around Thor, whose body swiftly stabilized but did not wake.

“Loki?”

A familiar feminine voice. Loki turned to see the Valkyrie racing towards them, looking winded and worse for wear. The sight of her, of yet another person who might have talked sense into Thor, made the spark of anger in him flare once more.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped.

Her expression was sour as she came to a stop beside him. “Protecting my king, of course.”

Norns help him. “And you are doing a _splendid_ job of it! Letting him fall a tremendous height after he was nearly burnt to death by a star. Leaving him here for what might’ve been his last few moments before Valhalla took him.”

“We had to restart the forge,” she said, looking more peevish by the second. “The rings are quite large.”

“Difficult to tread with any haste,” said the dwarf. Loki had nearly forgotten about him and did not like how he was hovering so far to the side, nearly blending in with the shadows.

“This is Loki, by the way,” the Valkyrie said. “Since somehow I suspect he neglected to introduce himself. Loki, this is King Eitri. He—”

“I do not care,” Loki said honestly, although now that he felt calmer, Thor’s heart beating without assistance, he noticed and wondered at the thick metal encasing the dwarf’s hands.

In Loki’s arms, Thor inhaled deeply and stirred.

“Thor!” Loki adjusted him so that he was lying half in Loki’s lap as he coughed and wheezed. “Thor, you dimwit, stop!” he said, because Thor was trying to roll away and perhaps even stand.

“Your Majesty!” the Valkyrie exclaimed, coming closer, as was Eitri, so Loki bared his teeth at them to let them know what he thought of that. They kept their distance, although the Valkyrie looked displeased.

“Loki?” Thor said, and his remaining blue eye blinked open. Loki would never get used to that, he thought. It was wrong that he should look into Thor’s face and be reminded, however faintly, of Odin.

“I’m here,” he said, and though he tried to keep his tone gentle, he knew it came out sharply edged.

“You gave us quite a fright, Your Majesty,” the Valkyrie said. “Although some of us were more affected than others.”

Thor jolted at that and struggled anew to exert himself beyond what Loki deemed him capable of. “Were we successful?” he asked urgently. “Did I…?” He spied the weapon in his hand and went silent, marveling at it, lifting it up and grinning at it like it was the most beautiful sight he had ever beheld.

“Yes,” Loki groused, “you have your blasted hammer, although whether—” But then he got his first proper look at it as well. “No you haven’t. Thor, that is an axe, not a hammer.”

Thor laughed. “Suiting, is it not? There was only ever one hammer for me. Although the handle is somewhat lacking, I suppose.”

Indeed, it was not the sturdy, elegant handle Loki had envisioned. The wood was gnarled and twisted, as though it had been cut from a tree that was diseased. It looked ugly and weak, and Loki could hardly stand to look at it.

“And yet I have no doubt that it will hold,” Thor said proudly, “and do its job admirably. It is called Stormbreaker.”

Thor was fine, Loki realized, already returned to his usual cheer and health, and every impulse Loki might have had to coddle was promptly extinguished. The Valkyrie evidently felt the same, as she sauntered past them and joined Eitri in picking up and tossing about metal.

“What subtlety,” Loki said. “Apparently it does suit you. I do hope it is worth what you nearly cost yourself to get it.”

He drew back, meaning to roll Thor carelessly on the floor, but Thor clasped his shoulder and held him close.

“I could not save our first home,” Thor said. “I will do everything in my power to protect our second.”

“Not at the expense of yourself,” Loki hissed. The earnestness in his own tone, the sentiment, made his skin crawl, so he added, “You oaf,” for good measure.

Thor’s chuckle, weak though it was, said he was not fooled. “So prickly. I am sorry I worried you, brother.”

“Yes, because I have no other reason to be displeased with you. It’s not as though you went and warned your little mortals that you suspected I was preparing some new cunning plan or mischief.”

“I thought you in trouble,” Thor protested. “And I was right, I think.” He paused, peering at Loki, no doubt trying to judge the accuracy of his suspicion. Loki gave him neither confirmation nor denial, and after a moment, Thor continued. “But I suppose they are one and the same with you. You are the God of Mischief, after all.”

“I have been making friends with your mortals, as a matter of fact,” Loki said lightly. “I thought you would be pleased.”

“If that is true, I would be very keen to hear of it. But, later.” Still gripping his axe in one hand, Thor heaved himself to sitting with a groan. “Did you use the Tesseract to come here?”

Loki stared, aghast but determined not to show it. That Romanov had known he possessed the Tesseract was one thing, for she was uncannily perceptive despite being mortal, but that Thor, too, knew seemed unthinkable. Had Loki truly become _that_ predictable?

“We had months, if not years, before the ship reached Midgard,” Thor said, breaking into a grin. “Yet after a matter of weeks, when we were running out of fuel, no less, you miraculously identify a mysterious wormhole that will take us precisely where we seek yet somehow not damage the ship in the slightest. I may not have your cleverness, brother, but neither am I the idiot you think.”

Loki sighed, equal parts frustrated and impressed. “Be that as it may, it is not a simple thing to ‘use’ an Infinity Stone.”

“No, it is not,” came Eitri’s booming voice.

Loki hadn’t exactly forgotten him, or the Valkyrie for that matter, but neither had he been overly aware of them. The Valkyrie was knelt down, gathering shards of what looked to be shattered metal, and Eitri was carrying a silver gauntlet. Something about the sight of it sent a shiver down Loki’s spine, as did the fact that Eitri was holding it oddly. He realized then that the dwarf’s hands were not encased in metal but had been _replaced_ by metal.

“What happened here?” Loki stood gracefully, looking at the desolate place around him and remembering his first thoughts upon arriving here. To Thor, he said, “This is not the Nidavellir you described to me so avidly once. There were hundreds of dwarves—”

“Three hundred,” said Eitri. “And Thanos killed all but me.”

Hearing that name spoken unsettled Loki, although he did not know why and would not admit to it. “Why? This realm is small. It should not have captured his notice.”

Eitri lifted the gauntlet. “As you said, wielding an Infinity Stone is not a simple feat.”

Loki saw the indentations in the metal then, each one the perfect fit for an individual stone. “And that gauntlet would allow him to wield one, or all of them, more easily?”

“It is but a prototype,” Thor said. He was well enough now that he could lift himself to standing as nimbly as Loki. “Thanos has the true gauntlet.”

“And he took your hands,” Loki surmised, “so you could not craft another.”

Eitri inclined his head in a solemn nod, and the Valkyrie placed her hand on his arm. She’d had a great deal of practice soothing very large men, Loki reflected.

“You are not surprised by any of this,” Thor said, watching Loki. The thoughtfulness, the understanding, in his eye reminded Loki of Frigga. “This is the trouble I suspected you were in. You know of Thanos.”

As the first flash of memory came upon him, the dark and the cold and the _pain_ , he made himself think instead of Romanov. The pain she inflicted upon him, bracing and glorious as it was. The way she looked at him, flaying him down to the bone, finding him wanting, condemning him for it, yet still stroking his hair afterwards like he was a charming, amusing pet.

“We might have met once or twice,” Loki said breezily. “Or perhaps the name is one of those universally familiar ones. It’s so hard to say for sure.”

 “Don’t,” Thor said, a smoldering heat in his tone. “Not after all we have endured together. For how long has he sought the stone within the Tesseract? Did he send you to Midgard for it? Did he make you—”

“‘Make’?” Loki forced a laugh through his dry throat. “Oh, brother. I am not, and have never been, the innocent party you may wish me to be. Will you never stop trying so _hard_ to see the good in everyone?” Before Thor could respond, he added, “But this is not the most ideal occasion to argue about it.”

Thor seemed to shake himself out of his thoughts, gazing around Nidavellir and their two silent spectators, remembering his purpose. “No, you are right. Heimdall has seen that Thanos is coming for Earth.”

“He is already there,” Loki told him. “His children attacked at least two cities of Earth, and that was hours ago.”

“ _What_?” Thor roared, and the Valkyrie echoed the sentiment. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place instead of allowing us to stand about here wasting time?”

_Wasting time._ Romanov had chastised him for something similar, hadn’t she? They didn’t understand. They hadn’t seen what Loki had. _They can’t fathom_ , he thought bitterly, _that I ran and hid for years not because I am a coward but because I am practical._

The thought was followed swiftly by: _But you aren’t running now, are you?_

No, he wasn’t. Else he would have left the Tesseract on Midgard, let the Black Order massacre the mortals in droves to retrieve it. Or he would drop it here on Nidavellir and let the Titan finish ravaging what little he had left of this realm.

But Loki had not, and he would not.

“Loki?” Thor said, more gently now. Whatever he thought he saw in Loki’s face must have been ghastly for his mood to shift so quickly, although Loki felt quite calm now, unshakable, all things considered.

Loki rubbed his cheek and relished the sting where Romanov had struck him not once but twice. At one point, she had promised to mold him into something worth valuing. He hadn’t believed her, but oh, had he wanted to.

He still did.

“A moment, brother,” he said, and turned to Eitri. “Now, I realize that with the forge damaged and with you having, well—” Loki gestured towards Eitri’s hands. “—what I’m about to suggest will be quite a challenge. But assuming that, between a prince of Asgard, the king of Asgard, and the last remaining Valkyrie, we can manage it, this time without burning someone to near death…how long would it take you to make another, perhaps slightly smaller gauntlet?”


	3. Time

When they reached New York, the spaceship was gone, and Tony was missing. The quinjet hovered far above the city while they reviewed satellite photos and discussed what the hell they were going to do now.

“They weren’t after the Tesseract,” Natasha said, leaning against the back of the pilot’s seat. “If it was with Rhodey in the new facility upstate, they had no reason to attack here. Unless their intel was wrong, but…”

“Not likely,” Steve agreed. His hands were on his hips, and he was staring into the cabin with his brow furrowed.

_Thinking about Loki_ , Natasha suspected, looking in the same direction, at the same space where Loki had disappeared from. She’d been avoiding dwelling on it herself; there was nothing to be gained from it. Loki had been here, and now he was gone, taking one of the stones with him. Whatever he was doing—running or defecting or something she couldn’t fathom—it was too late now. There was nothing she could do to change it, except be ready when he showed up again.

If he showed up again. He was a liesmith, after all.

“You think there’s another stone in New York?” Wanda asked from her seat beside Vision. They were leaning into each other, Wanda with her arms around him.

Natasha had seen the relationship coming the last time she’d watched them interact, but somehow the reality of it still jarred her. Something about the affection, the contentedness in each other’s company, despite the situation.

She wondered what it said about her that seeing any of the Avengers happy was a surprise. _Nothing good_ , she thought. _But you knew that._

She cleared her throat and looked away. “From what I remember of SHIELD’s briefings, there were quite a few enhanced living in New York. One of them could’ve gotten their hands on one.”

“It could have nothing to do with the Infinity Stones themselves,” Steve suggested.

“A diversion?” said Wanda.

“Maybe,” Natasha said.

She doubted it, though. Her instinct said there was something more to it, something down there in the city that Thanos wanted. Her instinct had let her down before—with Loki, most recently—but she wasn’t ready to give up her faith in it yet.

“Drop me off down there,” she said. “Take Vision to the New Avengers Facility. I’ll catch up with you.”

“Alone?” Steve crossed his arms. “You want to go down there alone?”

Natasha shrugged. “The aliens are gone, but they might’ve left a clue about what they were after. If nothing else, getting a closer look at the damage would give me an even better idea of what they’re capable of.”

“I don’t think we should be splitting up right now,” Wanda said, sounding wary.

“We’re already split up.” Natasha’s tone was a touch more surly than she meant it to be. Now that she had a plan, a purpose, she wanted to act. “Sam’s in Wakanda. Tony is gone. Clint’s in retirement. Bruce is who knows where. Besides…” She licked her lips, glancing over her shoulder, at the city that was so small beneath them. “I’m used to working alone.”

 

* * *

 

The damage wasn’t as bad as the Chitauri attack, but it wasn’t pretty either.

Debris littered the streets, fallen on and between abandoned cars, some of which had been smashed by street signs or bicycle racks. There were scorch marks on the pavement where fires had been put out, and phone-holding onlookers were swarming no matter how many emergency workers tried to shoo them off.

Natasha followed the wreckage from Bleecker Street and University Place to Washington Square Park, where cars were overturned in the grass and at least one of the monuments in pieces. She got a few curious and suspicious stares, but not as many as she expected, considering she was still in her Black Widow catsuit. Maybe the new vest made the outfit less conspicuous.

“Nat!”

She recognized the voice even before she saw its speaker. “Bruce.”

He’d looked better. His clothes were dirty, torn in a few places, and his hair was windswept and messy. He wore that wide-eyed, not-quite-crazed expression that she’d always thought made him look especially scientist-like.

To her surprise, she felt fond warmth rather than awkward dread at the sight of him. Although she couldn’t help but notice the feelings weren’t very different at all from when she’d seen Steve sitting at her kitchen table.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as he jogged up to her. She hadn’t seen or heard mention of the Hulk being present during the battle. Maybe Bruce was here, like her, trying to figure out what had happened.

“I, uh. Waiting for you, actually.” He glanced around, and she took the cue and did as well, but no one was paying them much attention, too focused on the scene of destruction. “Look, it’s…kind of a long story.”

“Give me the short of it then.”

“Short version.” He nodded. “Right, yeah. I was supposed to meet Tony. To talk about, you know, everything that happened with me and with the Avengers while I was gone. We were on our way to grab coffee, but this—this ship just came out of the sky, and two alien guys beamed down. Tony got into his Iron Man suit, and, uh. Well, the Big Guy and I aren’t really on the same page right now—”

“This isn’t exactly short, Bruce.” She almost regretted having to snap at him, but he laughed, seeming to understand.

“Yeah. Well, the shortest version is one of the wizards said to give this to you when you came.” He handed her what looked like a business card, except it had only an address written on it in fancy calligraphy.

“One of the wizards?” she asked. Her mind dashed to Loki, but that didn’t make sense. Bruce would never call Loki that.

“I think he knew it was coming.” Again, he glanced around, and again Natasha did too, but everything was more or less as it had been the last time. “I mean, it all happened so fast. I wanted to help, but the Hulk and I… Like I said, we’ve been having some problems, and I couldn’t stick around without getting in the way. The wizard guy said to give that to you when I saw you here.”

She turned the card over in her hands, squinted at the blank side, and then turned it back. _177A Bleecker St_ , it said.

Bruce was still talking. “He said you’d come. And, I mean, I didn’t exactly know where you were before now, so…”

Right. Because he’d been looking for her, Clint had said, and Natasha hadn’t wanted to be found. And, ah, there was the discomfort, the dread. “Yeah,” she said. “About that—”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, you don’t need to make excuses. I get it. It’s fine.”

He didn’t and it wasn’t. The flicker of pain in his expression said as much. He thought she’d changed her mind about him, thought he was too much of a monster to love, when—if anything—the opposite was closer to the truth.

_“Standing beside such monstrosities, you can almost forget the wickedness inside you,”_ Loki had said what felt like years ago now. He hadn’t been accurate, but maybe he hadn’t been wholly wrong either. After all, what had she done when Bruce had disappeared? Moved on easily enough. Fucked Loki and enjoyed it.

She couldn’t explain that, though, at least not now, so she held up the card. “You didn’t check this out?”

Bruce laughed again. “Course I did. The guy slammed the door in my face and said I’m not the one who’s supposed to be there. And I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not exactly impressive or intimidating when the Other Guy isn’t around.”

Well, at least she had a clearer objective now. She slipped the card in her pocket. “Steve’s on his way to the New Avengers Facility with Wanda and Vision. You should meet them there.”

Bruce’s eyebrows practically flew up his forehead. “And let you go to that place alone?”

Natasha held her irritation in check, but barely. “Look. A lot of things are going down right now. They can fill you in on the rest, but _my_ shortest version is someone’s after the Infinity Stones and Vision is in danger.”

“Scotland?”

Of course that would have hit the news just as quickly as New York had. She nodded. “We got him out, but if they come back…we’re going to need all the backup we can get.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Bruce.” She put the equivalent of vibranium in her voice: light but utterly unyielding. “Go.”

 

* * *

 

The door of 177A Bleecker Street opened immediately at her knock, and a man appeared in the doorway. He was unimpressive by sight, but Natasha knew appearances were deceiving. The number of people who had underestimated her because she was a tiny, pretty woman was evidence enough of that.

“You’re the one they call Black Widow?” the man asked.

She paused. She’d expected it—Bruce had said “the wizard” mentioned her specifically—but still she didn’t like that someone was asking for her by name. “I’ve been known as that, yes,” she said finally. “And you are?”

It pleased her a little that the man seemed to dislike her question as much as she had his, but just as she had, he answered it. “Wong.” He stepped back, waving her inside. “Come. I have something for you.”

A staircase was the first thing Natasha saw, followed by the reddish flooring and the furniture which looked uncomfortable and antique. The smell of the place reminded her of a cross between a museum and a church. If she’d ever been asked to envision the home of a “wizard” in New York, she supposed this wouldn’t be too far off.

“Who are you?” she said when Wong had shut the door behind them.

“I am a Master of the Mystic Arts.” He turned toward her. “And that is all you need to know.”

_One of the wizards_ , she thought, remembering Bruce’s words. The one who had given him the note? Then she was distracted by Wong fiddling with a chain around his neck, removing a necklace from under his red tunic.

“You must take this,” he said, holding it out, and immediately, instinctively, she jerked away from it.

A burnt golden color, with an eye-shaped pendant as large as Tony’s arc reactor, it was like no necklace Natasha had ever seen. No. It wasn’t a simple necklace; it was something far more. She could feel it, somehow. A sort of humming of power that grew more insistent as Wong thrust it toward her a second time.

This was what New York’s attackers had been after, she knew. And if that was true…

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want that. But I can take you to—”

“You must take it,” he said, so emphatically and with such a look of desperation that she realized he didn’t want it either. His arm sagged slightly as she shook her head again. “At the dawn of the universe, the Big Bang sent six elemental crystals hurdling across the—”

“The Infinity Stones,” she said. “Yeah, I know what they are. I’ve seen two of them in action.”

“Then you know precisely the destruction that could be caused if someone were to wield them all.” He raised his arm again, the eye pendant clutched in his hand while the chain dangled beneath it. “This is the Eye of Agamotto. It contains the power of the Time Stone, which we swore an oath to protect with our lives.”

“‘We’?”

“I and Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme.”

“Dr. Strange?” She recalled Steve mentioning the name, Loki becoming agitated by it, although she’d never heard it before then.

“It was he who trusted it to me and said I must give it to you.” This time when Wong stepped closer, Natasha didn’t back away, although she didn’t accept the Eye either. “He used the stone. He viewed millions of alternate futures, and in only two did we prevail in the coming conflict.”

Not exactly favorable odds. She swallowed. “And in at least one of those, I use the…the Time Stone?”

He tightened his lips and said, “It is the only way. Please. Take it, and protect it.”

Natasha took it. It wasn’t nearly as heavy as she expected, although she still swore she could hear and feel it humming against her palm. She suspected that was just her imagination, though. “What am I supposed to do with this? I don’t even know how to use it.”

_I don’t want to use it_ , she thought. In how many of these alternate futures did they stop Thanos only for Natasha to fuck everything up on her own?

Wong shook his head. “You protect it. He…he said nothing about using it. That is all I know.” The words set her anger burning low.

“Bullshit,” she hissed. “That is some ‘you’ll know when the time is right’ _bullshit_. You said that _you_ swore to protect this thing, and now you’re giving it to a known double agent? You can’t possibly trust me; you don’t seem that stupid. Hell, how do I know I can trust you?”

He was scowling as he stepped away from her, lowering his arms but not quite relaxing his stance, proving her point. But he only said, again, “This is the only way. Now I must continue to protect the Sanctum, and you must go.”

_Go where?_ She’d had a plan, a goal, but this wasn’t it. This threw everything into a tailspin. She wasn’t equipped for this.

“Where is Dr. Strange?” she asked. “Or Tony, for that matter. You were with them, right? When they were attacked?”

Wong’s scowl deepened, and he looked to the door as though he could see past it and into the destruction outside. “I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

She stole a car to drive upstate. She wasn’t happy about it and would’ve preferred to do pretty much anything else, but she had no other options. If there was ever an emergency that warranted the stealing of a car, she supposed this was it.

The roads were packed, about half of New York drivers trying to get out of the city before aliens attacked again, but since law enforcement was nowhere to be found, she sped and drifted off-road and broke dozens of traffic laws to reach the New Avengers Facility in a decent amount of time.

_Time._

She’d slipped the Eye of Agamotto around her neck as Wong had done, although its bulkiness didn’t fit comfortably under her skintight suit. With the vest zipped to her neck, the obviousness of the bulge was minimized, but the metal dug painfully into her sternum, feeling like a brand against her skin.

It was as good as a tracker, a target on her back. The Black Order had come after Strange for this, and when they realized he didn’t have it any longer—if they hadn’t already—they would come after her.

Her mind couldn’t help but wander to Loki. Had he felt the weight of the Tesseract like she now felt the weight of the Eye around her neck?

Except that he had stolen the Tesseract, and this had been given to Natasha. Not even to the Avengers, but to _her._ Her secret, her burden.

Was that why Loki had taken the Tesseract back? Because it was his duty, his responsibility, no one else’s?

_You’re projecting_ , she thought. _You’re bad about that with him._

She would tell no one. Not Steve, not Bruce. Not yet.

When she arrived at the New Avengers Facility, she found someone waiting for her in the lobby, perhaps the last person she had been expecting.

“Clint.”

Whereas Bruce had looked rough, Clint looked good. Rested, lively, prepared. A little grim, maybe, but in these circumstances, she could hardly blame him.

He summoned a smile for her and enveloped her in a hug. She worried he’d feel the Eye through her clothes, but he didn’t mention it.

“You made it just in time,” he said, drawing back but keeping her within reach.

“For what?”

He jerked his head toward the elevators and the upper floors. “They’re planning to take the stone out of Vision’s head.”

She blinked. “But that would kill him.” And Steve wouldn’t do that, nor would Wanda allow it. Hell, she didn’t think _Clint_ would allow it. Vision might’ve been an android, but he was still part of the team.

“Apparently not. If it’s extracted just right, Banner says most of what makes Vision, well, Vision should survive. But he can’t do the extraction himself, and Tony is…”

“Yeah,” Natasha said softly. “Yeah.”

“Speaking of missing.” Clint made a production of glancing behind her and then around like someone was going to pop out of the shadows. “Where’s you-know-who?”

Had it really been only a day and a half ago that she’d been in her Chelsea apartment with Loki, teasing and fucking him, feeling so powerful with the control she had over him? It felt like weeks had passed since then, maybe months. But, then again, that was life. She knew that perhaps better than anyone.

She suspected Steve had already filled Clint in on Loki’s disappearance, so she only sighed and said, “Abandoned us and took the Tesseract with him. You were right.”

“I guess it’s bound to happen sometimes.” Clint spoke lightly, but his eyes were hard. “Pretty sure I didn’t say anything at all this time, though, much less something right.”

There was something to dissect in that statement, she thought, but now wasn’t the time. She headed for the elevators, toward whatever her team was preparing, and Clint walked with her.

“You were supposed to be keeping your head down, you know,” she said. “Remember? Retirement? Narrowly missing being a fugitive like me?”

His smile was wry and a bit sad. “Yeah, well. Retirement’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“What does that mean?”

He stopped her just before she could call the elevator, and faced her, one corner of his lip turned down. “It means the entire universe is under attack, and you’re the only one who called me. Which was out of guilt more than anything”—he cut her off before she could speak—“and don’t even pretend it wasn’t.”

He was right, of course. Otherwise, she might’ve just left him to his ignorance, with his wife and his children and his peace.

“Now that I’m off the field,” he said, “I never know what’s really happening out there. I have nightmares that Laura—god love her—just can’t understand. I have to make up excuses to talk to my friends, and”—again she tried to speak, and again he talked over her—“and I have a son who has never even met you.”

That wasn’t strictly true. She’d seen Nathaniel once, briefly, just before she’d gone underground, but it hadn’t really been _meeting_. He’d been asleep, for one, and far too little to remember her even if he hadn’t been.

Clint continued. “If that’s what keeping my head down means…” He breathed deeply, frowning at the elevator doors. “I don’t want it.”

Natasha’s chest felt tight, and words dried up in her throat. What could she say to that? That she was sorry? That she hadn’t realized she was hiding herself away, giving herself ample space to lick the wounds from SHIELD’s fall, until it was too late?

“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “That got more heavy than I meant it to.”

She shook her head and made herself say, “You’re not the one who should be apologizing.”

“Debatable. But I’m a hell of a lot better at it than you, so.” He jammed the button to call the elevator. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Now that you’re here, we need to get to Wakanda.”

 

* * *

 

The Eye of Agamotto seemed to hang heavier in Wakanda. From the moment Natasha stepped off the quinjet, to when she watched King T’Challa’s younger sister examine Vision, to when she stood with T’Challa and Steve at the edge of Wakanda’s barrier, her neck felt like it was growing weaker under its weight.

It seemed to her like everyone should’ve seen the lump under her suit, or at least should have recognized that she’d zipped her vest all the way up, uncharacteristically. If not Steve or Clint, then certainly Sam or Bruce.

Instead, it was Proxima Midnight who sneered right at Natasha and said, “Thanos will have those stones.”

If Steve and T’Challa thought it odd that she’d referred to multiple stones instead of just the one, they didn’t show it.

The threat should have frightened Natasha, should have made the Eye hang even heavier, but somehow it only strengthened her resolve. She had been born for bloodshed, trained half her life for battle, and survived horrors worse than death.

_Go ahead and try_ , she thought viciously, giving Midnight a smile sharp enough to carve the flesh off a corpse. _I fucking dare you._

But she knew the difference between keeping a burden to herself and straight-up stupidity, so as they hurried back to the front line, she leaned close to Steve and murmured, “You should probably know I found something in New York.”

She tapped her chest, and Steve followed the gesture and looked shocked and then thunderous.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You should be in there with Wanda. That thing should be—”

“Not a chance, Rogers.” Wong hadn’t given her the Time Stone to destroy; he’d given it to her to protect, and she would damn well do it. She wasn’t going to argue with someone who’d played with time and seen the future.

There was a piercing animalistic screaming from the tree line: Thanos’s army set loose from the ships.

Steve gritted his teeth, gave her one more severe expression, and said, “Stay in my sight.”

It was more easily demanded than done. Whatever creatures Thanos’s army were, there were droves of them, and when T’Challa commanded a section of the barrier be opened, the battlefield quickly became chaos. All around Natasha were the grunting, screaming cries of the creatures and the sounds of humans struggling under the onslaught.

The only upside was that none of them seemed to target her any more than her companions. Whatever it was that identified an Infinity Stone, these creatures didn’t have it. If she remained in the thick of the fighting, didn’t let herself be isolated or struck down, the Time Stone would be safe until—

_Until what? You don’t know how to use it, if you’re even supposed to. You don’t know what you’re waiting for._

The sky seemed to open, split by a streak of light, and in the next moment creatures were collapsing in a line, torn to pieces by something blue and gleaming. When the light faded, Thor stood in its wake, and a massive axe flew to his hand. A woman stood beside him, short but fierce-looking, brandishing a sword, and just behind them both was Loki.

The relief that came over Natasha—that she hadn’t been wrong, hadn’t completely misplaced her trust again—was so powerful she almost swayed with it. But…

_If he still has the Tesseract, that’s three Infinity Stones in one place._ And it hadn’t escaped her notice that Thanos had yet to arrive. This wasn’t the true battle; this was only the beginning.

Natasha sucked in a breath, clasped her batons more tightly, and fought with everything she had. They couldn’t falter. They couldn’t lose even one of the stones today.

“Guys, we have a Vision situation,” Sam called over the comms, and Natasha swore, spun, but saw only Okoye, who had paused, gazing at something behind Natasha with wide eyes. Natasha looked as well.

The whole barrier had been broken, and some sort of bladed metal tanks were headed right for them. Natasha knelt, fumbling for the chain around her neck, tugging frantically, not even sure what she was going to do, but before she could try, Wanda was there, saving them with her magic.

The battle continued. More creatures lunged toward her, and Natasha swung and slashed at them. She stayed near Wanda and Okoye, who were both powerful in their own right, strong enough to take the Eye of Agamotto off Natasha’s dying body if it came to that.

Steve’s voice sounded in Natasha’s ear: “Someone get to Vision!”

She was distracted, too focused on Wanda reaching for her comm, answering, “I’m on my way.” When Wanda went down in the next moment with a pained shout, Natasha reacted too slowly. Midnight reached Wanda’s prone body before her.

“He’ll die alone,” Midnight said, “as will you.”

“She’s not alone,” Natasha said, and Okoye flanked Midnight on the other side, her spear up.

Midnight fought harder this time, motivated by having already failed once, perhaps—or maybe Natasha was just tiring. Midnight smacked her in the forehead with a weapon, sending her sprawling, her head spinning and panic in her throat, and threw Okoye off shortly after.

Again, Natasha went for the Eye, yanked it free of her catsuit, and clutched it. She needed to open it somehow, to…think very, very hard about interrupting time?

Midnight struck her again, this time in the stomach, and although Natasha managed to keep her grip on the Eye, her focus was scattered. Her breath was gone. She gasped and coughed, trying to get oxygen back in her lungs.

There was a gleam of gold, a sound like metal slicing through the air, and Midnight pitched backward with a cry.

Natasha recognized the helmet that rolled onto the ground, but it didn’t stop her from struggling when someone grabbed her from behind. She kicked and flailed, gnashed her teeth, fully prepared to fight like an animal if that was what she had to do.

“Stop!” Loki said. “It’s me. It’s Loki.”

She turned her energy toward jerking herself away from him and to her feet, facing Midnight—just in time to see Wanda lifting her with magic and tossing her into the blades of a tank. Loki reached for Natasha again, and she slapped him away with a growl.

“I appreciate that you came back,” she said. “I do. But we don’t have time for this.”

“Indeed we don’t.” He lifted one hand, a gesture she recognized from when he retrieved the Tesseract from wherever the hell he stored it. But instead of the Tesseract, he produced a metal glove about four times as big as his hand. To her further surprise, he shoved it toward her.

She took it. “What is this?”

“The Infinity Gauntlet.” He was gasping nearly as much as she was, she realized, and he looked beaten and battle-worn. His face was dark with dirt, and his hair was tangled and damp with sweat. When he grinned suddenly, blood was smeared on his front teeth. “Or, rather, a second one.”

The answer only frustrated her, and she let her tone say as much. “Loki.”

“It’s intended to harness the power of the Infinity Stones,” he said quickly.

She twisted the huge gauntlet in her hand and saw a blue stone—the Space Stone—was slotted into one of the notches on its back.

Loki continued. “It isn’t much, perhaps, but with the Mind Stone—”

She didn’t think. This was it. She knew it. She thrust the gauntlet into his hands again, lifted the Eye of Agamotto over her head, and gave that to him as well. “And the Time Stone,” she said.

He looked awed, mouth dropping as he gazed at the Eye. “That… How…? You couldn’t possibly have killed—”

Over his shoulder, she spotted a creature charging toward them, a second and third following in its path. She pushed Loki out of the way and met them head-on, stabbing one through the mouth, plunging the end of her baton through the second’s throat, and, suddenly sick of hand-to-hand, whipping out her Glock and shooting the third through the chest.

When the bodies had stopped twitching, she turned and found Loki holding out the gauntlet. A green stone now sat next to the blue.

“Take it,” he insisted.

It was like Wong all over again, except this time she remained firm. “Not me.”

She looked around—for Steve, for Clint, for anyone—but even Wanda and Okoye had left. She spied Thor in the distance, mostly from the blinding blue lightning that surrounded him like a cloak.

Her comm crackled to life again, and this time it was Bruce’s voice in her ear. “Guys, we need backup!”

Apparently, it would have to be her. She spun back to Loki to take it, and almost gasped. He’d slipped the gauntlet on, although it dwarfed his whole arm, and he gazed at her with bright, solemn eyes.

Panic hit her, as potent as Thor’s lightning. Two Infinity Stones, power over time and space. _Not him._ There was trusting a recovered alcoholic not to sneak into the nearest liquor store, and then there was pouring liquor into his mouth and expecting him not to swallow. _Not him._

“Loki,” she said.

Then, in a blink, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't *not* include that beautiful scene with Natasha, Okoye, and Wanda, even if I altered it a bit. <3


	4. Gauntlet

Power. Loki felt _power_. It sang in his heart, his bones, his blood. Every part of him burned with it. It was…intoxicating.

The force he could wield, the control he could have. He would never be weak again. He’d been born to be a king, and he would be one.

He remembered his failed invasion, standing before a crowd of mortals, commanding them to yield—and how easily they had. All but one, of course, who could so effortlessly have been cut down and made an example of.

Then he remembered why he had failed. Why he always failed. Why Thor had knelt over his agonized, twitching body and said, _“You’ll always be the God of Mischief, but you could be more.”_

Yes. He could.

The gauntlet was smaller than the Mad Titan’s—at Loki’s insistence, as he’d been thinking of Romanov’s small hands—but still it was too large. To curl his fingers into a fist mightn’t be as simple or as comfortable a feat for him as it surely was for the Titan, but he managed, concentrating on the Mind Stone and the machine who carried it.

Then Loki was standing behind Corvus Glaive, watching him plunge his blade into the machine’s chest. Loki summoned his knife, darted forward, and slit Glaive’s throat.

Glaive stumbled backwards and fell, gurgling, to the ground. Loki regarded him a moment, until he’d judged that the life had left his miserable body, and then Loki turned to the machine that the mortals called Vision.

And there it was. The Mind Stone. Glittering in his forehead as he gazed up at Loki, shuddering as his circuitry flickered and fought to endure.

Loki heard approaching footsteps, and the witch appeared, launching herself at the machine.

 _Names_ , he thought, remembering Captain Rogers’ comment ( _“Tell him she has a name”_ ). _Indeed, they have names._

Although Maximoff spoke urgently, Vision did not take his eyes from Loki.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and only then did Loki hear the sudden quiet from the battlefield, the wind gently shaking the trees around them.

“He’s here,” Vision said.

Terror dawned like an insect emerging from its cocoon, trembling in the new day. For years Loki had hidden, knowing this would come yet praying it never did.

 _But you are not alone_ , he thought, _nor empty-handed. Two Infinity Stones and so close to three…_

He could rip the Mind Stone from Vision’s head. Vision was already injured; he would not have the strength to stop it. It would kill him, of course, but that did not matter. He wasn’t even alive, truly. Nor was he a he, for that matter, but an it. A machine given consciousness by the power of the stone, nothing more.

Yet Loki could not move. Maximoff was cradling the _it_ like a lover, murmuring words of comfort. Others were gathering around them—Banner, the Captain, people whose names he did not know—determined to protect their fallen comrade, not caring whether it was mortal or machine.

“I love you,” the machine said to Maximoff, and the words hurt Loki in a way he could not fathom, made him want to flinch and hide himself away again, damn the gauntlet, damn it all.

And then Vision looked again to him, first at the gauntlet and then into Loki’s face. Loki saw acceptance there. Understanding and acceptance.

 _He is better than you_ , Loki thought. _Nothing but a machine, and he has more worth than you could ever hope for._

The entire realm seemed to hold its breath when the Mad Titan arrived, materializing from a portal with no weapon but the gauntlet. It held three stones, Loki saw. Reality, Power, and Soul.

Loki had only one more to retrieve before matching him.

“The sun will rise for you again,” he told Vision, “and I will mend all of the damage I have wrought. I swear it.”

Then he bolted forwards, thrusting Maximoff to the side, and tore the stone from Vision’s head.

Loki was only vaguely aware of Vision falling, Maximoff screaming, the Avengers rushing towards the Titan as though they had any hope of triumph—he cared more about securing the third Infinity Stone in his gauntlet. And when the golden gem was in its place, it was simple enough to slip into Maximoff’s mind, to suggest sleep before she hurled a red ball of energy at him in rage.

It was simple enough to freeze the rest of the Avengers in their places, to stop them from charging to their dooms.

And, against all expectations, it was simple enough to close the distance between himself and Thanos and stand before him, bold and unflinching, his fist clenched in his own too-big Infinity Gauntlet.

“Well, well,” said Thanos. “Loki.”

He seemed smaller, somehow, than Loki recalled, although not so small that fear failed to flood Loki’s veins like a spilt poison. Thanos was still larger than Loki, so much more physically powerful. Cleverer, too, than Loki would have preferred.

 _Yet you have three Infinity Stones_ , he reminded himself, _as does he. In this, you are equals._

He set his shoulders back, lifted his chin, summoned the dignity and composure of a prince of Asgard, and ignored the echoes of his own tortured screams in his memory. His cheeks still ached from Romanov’s fists, and he clung to that, the calm and sense of purpose she’d given him, as he spread his arms, showing off his own gauntlet, and smiled.

“Surprised to see me?” he asked.

“Impressed,” Thanos said. “It takes true strength of character to rise from the ashes of failure. Especially a failure such as yours.”

Loki creeped into his mind, as effortlessly as he had Maximoff’s, but here he lingered and looked. There was an island of grief, but it was but a speck in the far distance, easily lost amidst the deep waters of obsession. The debt Thanos felt. He’d been resurrected, brought back as the sole survivor of a dead world, and his devotion to his savior was vast.

Then Loki blinked, spied the smirk curling Thanos’s lips, and realized Thanos wanted him to see this, wanted to toy with Loki once more before his eventual triumph. Loki didn’t let his smile falter as he retreated from Thanos’s mind.

“Do you know, my sister was the Goddess of Death,” he said. “Not Lady Death herself, I grant you, but similar enough. Those who did her bidding received little more than the absentminded pat on the head of a ruler who cares nothing for her subjects.”

Thanos stepped closer, and although there was still distance enough between them, he seemed to loom directly overhead. Loki was reminded of Thor, except that Thanos was darkness where Thor was light: a long-dead sun where Thor still blazed.

“Ah, but how satisfying that ‘pat’ is,” Thanos said. “I’d think you would understand that better than most.”

The implication burned. Loki didn’t know how, which of the stones gave Thanos the insight into Loki’s mind that the Mind Stone gave Loki into his, but Thanos knew. The peace that Romanov provided, the soul-deep satisfaction that came when she gathered up the sad, shattered pieces of Loki and declared him _good_.

When Loki said nothing, Thanos’s grin was vicious and triumphant. “But you’re assuming I have only a single motivation. You are wrong. The universe is out of balance, Loki. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? So many planets on the brink of collapse, people starving and withering away from lack. The universe is finite, its resources finite—”

Loki laughed, half surprised that he needn’t force it at all. “This is how you mean to convince me to give you the stones? A flawed argument about your actions being for the _greater good_ of the universe, as though I have any care for that sort of thing?”

Thanos’s grin diminished to a faint smile, but it was the smile one gave a child who could not possibly understand anything. Loki, incapable of ignoring such condescension, ground his teeth and snarled despite himself.

“No, you don’t,” Thanos said. “You are like me. You care for yourself above all others, you act for your own benefit. But you have lost so much.”

A dark mist grew around them, blotting out their surroundings completely, and when it receded they stood in Asgard, in the beautiful, well-lit halls of the palace. There was movement in the corner of Loki’s vision, and although he knew it unwise to take his eyes from Thanos, the sound—the _voice_ —that accompanied that movement… He was helpless but to turn his head.

His mother, alive and radiant, and beside her was Loki himself, younger and dressed as the prince he had been. They were walking together, glowing with the pleasure of each other’s company.

Loki was not a fool. This was a trick of the Reality Stone, nothing more, but it hurt, deeply, as it was surely meant to do.

“It could be restored,” Thanos said. “Better than before. I could make you your brother’s equal, in all things. A true son of Odin.”

Loki felt such a venom then that it dripped from his words when he said, “I _am_ a son of Odin.”

He remembered himself as he’d first encountered Thanos, not knowing yet that the house of Odin was a house of monsters lying in wait, hidden well behind the gold and the grandeur. Not knowing yet that, in that respect, he was more Odin’s son than Thor.

How broken he had been, so desperate to believe that Thanos could make him the god he was meant to be.

How broken he still was, wishing that it had been true.

The vision of Frigga was suddenly gone, and Asgard was burning. Bodies fallen in battle were now engulfed in flame. Surtur’s height towered above him.

“Perhaps you are,” Thanos said, sounding amused by Loki’s anger. “Perhaps that is why you still have so much to lose.”

Now it was Earth burning, the land where the remaining Asgardians had made their temporary home. Bodies of murdered children littered the grass. Among them, Heimdall’s golden gaze stared ahead, unseeing in death.

Loki turned back to Thanos and saw that he held Thor’s head in one massive hand, skull crushed and blood and brain oozing between his purple fingers. At Thanos’s feet was Romanov’s body, similarly broken.

A harrowing image, yes—and no doubt it would stay with Loki for centuries to come—but it was not real. If he’d had any doubt, then Thor’s two eyes and Romanov’s red hair confirmed it.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “You’ve made your point.”

The illusion dissolved, and once more he and Thanos stood facing each other on an as-yet-only-slightly-damaged Earth. The machine’s—Vision’s body was crumpled just beside Loki, and somewhere not far from that, the Avengers and their enemies were frozen in time and space. Romanov—Natasha—rightfully distrusting of him, regretting not taking the gauntlet from him when he had offered it. And Thor with Stormbreaker clutched in his hand, driven by the need to be the hero again, to finally, finally save something after losing so much.

 _None of them matter now_ , he thought. _It is only you and the Titan._

He raised his arms as he had before, an arrogant and falsely welcoming, _see-me-as-I-am_ pose that invited Thanos’s gaze to flicker toward the gauntlet on Loki’s right hand.

“But you still lack three stones,” Loki said.

Thanos’s expression was unreadable, carefully so. “I do.”

“Hm. And because you’ve confronted me with nothing but illusions, I assume you want to come to some sort of arrangement.”

There was a pause while Thanos surveyed him, judged him, and then Thanos smiled. “And you want to hear my offer.”

 _Yes. Perhaps I do indeed._ Loki might have exerted control over Thanos’s mind at the very beginning; he might have manipulated time and space to send the Reality, Power, and Soul Stones back from whence they came. But he had not.

He licked his lips and met Thanos’s eyes. It wasn’t as difficult as it had been. He no longer felt the flames of Thanos’s torture licking his flesh. He did not feel the frantic terror that had remained with him for years after he’d left Thanos’s presence.

“Will you spare any of Earth?” he asked.

“Half. I might be convinced to include some humans of your choosing in that half.”

Loki shrugged as though it did not matter. “Those that remain will be frightened. In need of leadership. Many worlds would, I imagine.”

Thanos’s smile widened. “Yes. They will.”

Loki nodded, stepping forward. “In that case…”

He focused on the boundless, intricate tapestry of time, and plucked free the threads that had brought the Reality, Power, and Soul Stones into Thanos’s possession. Then, one by one, he tore them, restoring each stone to its rightful place.

When the first had vanished from the gauntlet as though it had never been there, Thanos roared and charged. He reached for Loki as the second disappeared, and closed his massive, powerful fingers around Loki’s neck just as the third was returned. Thanos squeezed, so near to crushing Loki’s throat.

But Loki slipped free easily, a simple tweak of time and space. He was laughing, breathlessly, at how easy it was, how powerful he was—more than anyone in the universe, now that Thanos was unarmed and weakened.

 _Now_ , he thought. _Let us end this._

He tightened the threads he had manipulated, wakened the Avengers from their stasis, and summoned his brother to give him the victory he craved.

If Thor was bewildered to have been suddenly blinked from one place to another, he did not show it. He only tightened his grip on Stormbreaker and faced Thanos with lightning crackling around him.

Thor bellowed, a battle cry as familiar to Loki as his own, and leapt forward, plunging his axe into Thanos’s chest.

“His head!” Loki snapped. “For Norns’ sake, Thor. I give you an opportunity, and you squander it.”

Even worse: because Thor hadn’t put the full force of his rage behind the blow, Thanos only staggered briefly, grunting in pain, before he grabbed Thor by the head. A vision of crushed skulls and brains flickered through Loki’s mind, and he didn’t bother holding in his noise of exasperation as he attempted to fix Thor’s wrong.

Again, Thor did not falter, not even seeming to notice that Thanos had frozen in place like a statue. He heaved the axe from Thanos’s chest, lifted it high, and brought it down as he was meant to, cleaving Thanos’s skull through its center.

Others swiftly joined Thor, descending on Thanos’s lumbering bulk, which was not yet dead but far beyond fighting back.

Before Loki knew it, he was laughing again, albeit silently, his whole body shaking but not a sound leaving his lips. The stones’ power still flowed through him, more strongly now, and he felt drunk with it. Drunk, too, with satisfaction and victory. He had done it. It was finished.

Even so, the tapestry of time continued to stretch out in front of him. He followed it a ways, his laughter abating although his body still trembled.

They would take the gauntlet from him. Of course they would. Why shouldn’t Earth’s mightiest heroes prefer him unarmed and weak just as he had made Thanos? But Loki needn’t relinquish it. Not immediately, in any case. _“It could be restored,”_ Thanos had said, and oh, yes, it could. So many wrongs in Loki’s life, and each one was as easy to right as the stones had been to restore.

He breathed life—or whatever a machine’s equivalent was—back to Vision’s body, and Thor shouted in alarm when Loki gave him back his second eye. Asgard must be next, of course, or Frigga, or—no.

 _Do not be hasty_ , Loki thought. _That is how mistakes are made. You aren’t Thor._ He would have to ensure he did not restore Hela, that he did not bring about a second, bloodier Ragnarok, that he did not sacrifice any more than he absolutely must. How simple it would be to blunder, to wreck everything further when he was rethreading the past for so many. Wasn’t failure the path that his feet walked most naturally?

He felt the void closing in on him, the sick swooping sensation in his gut that said he was falling, falling, falling in the black, all his air gone, his lungs burning and rotting from the lack. _If this is what the Infinity Stones bring, then no wonder Thanos was mad._

“Hey.”

A hand on his shoulder, small but firm. Romanov. Loki knew even before he saw her, the bruises on his face aching again as though responding to the presence of their maker.

With the gauntlet, he could control her mind. Bind her to him, leash her like the pet she’d tried to make him, force her to obey him, to cherish him, to stay with him always. He could change her hair back to the shade that reminded him of fire and blood, pain and survival.

“Hey,” she said again, cupping his jaw. “You’re okay.”

Her skin felt hot against his. Perhaps his illusion had slipped, and he was standing in front of her—in front of all of them—in his true Jotun form. He glanced down, but his bare hand was pale, Aesir, as his fingers curled around the wrist of the too-big gauntlet.

“Loki,” Romanov said, and he met her eyes immediately. She smiled, but it was thin. “You did good.”

The pat on the head of a ruler who cared nothing for her subjects, but, yes, it was satisfying. Calming. She meant it.

“Give me the gauntlet,” she said.

 _No_ , he thought feebly, wanting to cringe away from her touch. Before he could, there was warmth at his back, Thor’s unmistakably strong but clumsy arms wrapping around him, caging him as Thor babbled “Brother” and words of triumph repeatedly into Loki’s ear.

“Brother,” Loki said back, turning to look at him.

Thor’s face was spotted with Thanos’s blood, and there was such pride in his expression—in his two blue eyes—such certainty that Loki would celebrate with him as they had celebrated any of their victories in centuries past.

He had not balked when Loki had shared his mad idea, though both the Valkyrie and Eitri certainly had. He had not hesitated to help forge a second gauntlet and bring it, one stone in place, to Earth on Loki’s hand.

Loki swallowed thickly. “One moment,” he said, and faced Romanov again.

The gauntlet did not want to come off, seeming for a moment to suck his hand in deeper as he tugged at it. When it eventually slipped free, he felt the power rush out of him like water through an opened drain. His own weakness descended again, as inevitable as nightfall. For one final second, he relished the knowledge that the universe, that time itself, was in his grasp. Then he laid it all at Romanov’s feet.

Or, rather, in her hand, as she accepted the Infinity Gauntlet from him. The pride in her eyes was not nearly as obvious as Thor’s, but he saw it just the same—and he turned, right into Thor’s embrace, before he did something stupid like try to snatch the damn thing back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I strongly believe Nebula (or Gamora) should be the one to ultimately stick it to Thanos, but since this is a Natasha and Loki story and I'm not very into the Guardians part of the MCU anyway, it turned out like this. Hopefully it worked. :)


	5. Quiet

Natasha could go longer than three or four days without sleep, but it wasn’t pleasant. Nor, now, was it really necessary, so when T’Challa offered her a room to rest tonight, she accepted it gladly.

There were dead to bury, and messes to clean up, and the fate of Infinity Stones to argue over—but they could wait until tomorrow.

She bathed quickly, more out of a desire to avoid staining anything in Wakanda’s royal palace with alien blood than any real need to feel clean. Then she lay in bed above the covers, on her stomach with her head pillowed on her arms, enjoying the cool air against her bare skin.

She dozed, slipped at some point into sleep, and woke when she became aware of a presence in the room. The approaching footsteps were clearly audible, obviously not an attempt to sneak or catch her off guard, so she opened her eyes with only some caution.

Loki paused when their gazes met. He stood maybe two feet away, wearing his armor minus the cape and the helmet, looking as exhausted as she was. Not that the tiredness stopped his eyes from wandering, slow and hungry, down the length of her body. Natasha felt an urge to cover her nakedness but ignored it. He’d seen it all before.

“What do you want?” she asked.

He had left with Thor and the woman they’d called Valkyrie hours ago. Back to the Asgardian camp to consult with someone or something. Natasha had been too distracted, helping a badly bleeding Jabari warrior to the lab for treatment, to ask for more details than that.

“I thought you might like to know that Heimdall has located your missing companions on Titan.”

“Tony?” she said, thinking _How the hell did he get there?_ Then she remembered the spaceship. Of course Tony had just climbed aboard and gone with it back to its home. Of course he had.

“Him, yes, and Strange. And a child. They’re injured, frightened, but alive. Thor is retrieving them as we speak.”

“A child?”

Loki shrugged, and his expression said _Not a fucking clue_ so clearly that Natasha couldn’t help but laugh. He seemed startled and then pleased at the reaction, and she suspected he was holding back a smile as he climbed onto the bed with her.

“Really, really not in the mood,” she said, but she moved for him, ensuring there was space between them as he lay beside her.

“Not in the mood for what? I don’t believe I requested anything.” He waved a hand and his armor was gone, his skin as bare as hers. He mimicked her pose, resting his head atop his folded arms, and blinked at her as though he truly couldn’t imagine what she meant.

“You know damn well what. I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept in days.”

“Nor have I.”

She scoffed. “You’re a god.”

“Am I indeed?” Humor, genuine as far as she could tell, was thick in his voice, and this time he let his smile free. It was fond, playful. “I must say, I’m flattered you have such a high opinion of me.”

_He’s trying to joke with me_ , she thought. It seemed absurd after everything that had happened, after he’d held the power of time and space and mind and nearly refused to let go of it just as she’d been afraid he would.

She was too tired to deal with this now, so she only sighed and turned her head. When he realized she wouldn’t play with him like he wanted, he would give up and show himself out. “Good night, Loki,” she mumbled.

The bed rocked as he moved once, twice, and then stillness and silence fell. Natasha waited, but she could feel that he was still there, doing…nothing, by the sound of it. She gave it five minutes before she twisted her head to look.

He was lying supine, his hands clasped just below his ribs and his face tilted away from her, although not far enough that she couldn’t see his eyes were closed. He breathed slowly, steadily. His cock was…well, not soft but not fully erect either. He seemed perfectly content to do nothing but sleep beside her.

It was more than a little disconcerting.

“You know this isn’t a relationship,” she said. “Right?”

He half sat up, propping himself on his elbows and peering down at her with wide eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“You and me. This isn’t romance. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page and you’re not getting…attached.”

The curl of his lip, communicating not just incredulity but disgust, reassured her better than anything else could. “How…?” He looked to the ceiling briefly and then back at her. “No, perhaps it’s best if I don’t know. You may rest easy knowing I have no disillusions about our interactions.”

“Right.”

Natasha faced away again, but he was still watching her. She could feel it, his gaze on her like an insect crawling between her shoulder blades and down her spine. She turned back, and sure enough, he was staring like he had no idea what to do with her. _Right back at you_ , she thought.

“You weren’t going to give it back,” she found herself saying. “The gauntlet.”

He arched an eyebrow. “And that made you worry I thought of you romantically?”

“Unrelated. New topic.” She rolled toward him and realized she was baring her front only when he was once again following the line of her body with his eyes. It didn’t turn her on—she wasn’t quite that easy—but neither did it turn her off. She arched her own eyebrow, wordlessly asking _Got a problem?_

He only smirked and said, “But I did give it back. Though I feel I should remind you that you didn’t want it in the first place.”

“Because I knew it wasn’t supposed to be me.”

A lie, of course. She’d been afraid of failing, of losing control. She didn’t completely trust her own judgment still, particularly when it came to things that mattered. She’d been blind to too many truths in her life simply because she hadn’t wanted to see them—not exactly the sort of person who should wield power like the Infinity Stones.

“How did you come to possess the Time Stone,” Loki said, “if you did not take it from Strange’s corpse?”

She was taken aback by the question, but she refused to show it. Nor, she decided, would she answer it. Not to him. “I think the better question is why you never said before that you knew Strange had it.”

His smile was thin, although somehow it didn’t strike her as less genuine for it. “I was impressed, you know. When I thought you’d killed for it. Pity. Ah, well. It all turned out well in the end, did it not? Perhaps I’d go so far as to say I worked admirably well on a team for once.”

She snorted. “That wasn’t working on a team; that was going off on your own.” Although she could hardly criticize him, when she had done the same. Venturing into New York alone, hiding the Time Stone until she’d had no other option.

Something about his smirk suggested he knew at least a little of what she was thinking, but he said nothing.

Eventually, she admitted, “But, yes, you did give it over in the end. And that was good.”

He rolled his eyes. “Always that word. ‘Good.’ Surely your vocabulary isn’t so inadequate you cannot manage a synonym now and again.”

“My vocabulary is just fine, thanks. It’s intentionally simplistic. It hits and sinks deep, where other words might only glance off.”

The memory of how he glowed with pleasure when she called him _good_ , how much he seemed to need to hear it, was apparently what her libido needed to perk up. Even knowing that she was playing into his hand again, doing exactly as he’d wanted when he’d come here, wasn’t enough to dissuade her. Besides, she reasoned, positive reinforcement worked wonders for encouraging good behavior.

_Good behavior like not betraying us at the last second_ , she thought wryly.

She cocked her head, smiled coyly, and pitched her voice low, seductive. “You can’t tell me you don’t like it when I call you a good boy. Your body doesn’t lie.”

He smiled back, clearly pleased she was finally responding as he’d intended. “My _body_ , as you say, has certain natural responses to the sight of an attractive form. It’s nothing to do with words.”

“I’m not talking about your dick.” Although it was fully erect now, and he had angled himself toward her, inviting her to touch.

She sat up, and he moved as though he meant to follow but lay still when she held him in place. He was looking at her breasts, her hard nipples, and the bald desire in his expression made her eager to deny him any access to them.

“Can you stay quiet?” she asked.

He gazed up into her face like he didn’t understand and, after a long pause where Natasha only stared back, said, “What?”

She laughed. He was certainly good for her ego. “I want you to tell me that no one will hear us if I fuck you right now.”

He shuddered at that and rolled onto his stomach with no prompting from her. “They’ll hear nothing.”

“There are lots of ways to fuck, you know. I didn’t necessarily mean that,” she said, although she had meant exactly that, despite having no toys, no gloves, no lube. He loved it so much, moaned so sweetly for it, that she was willing to make do with what she did have.

She could almost hear him berating himself for exposing his wants, could practically smell the shame on him, but then he said, into his folded arms, “In that case, I would be willing to argue in favor of it.”

She stroked his hair, a reward for not hiding and deflecting, and slid one hand down to cup his throat and squeeze. She kept the pressure on the tips of her fingers and thumb, giving him the sensation of being choked without the risks. Just as she’d known he would, he whimpered and inched his thighs farther apart.

“That’s not being quiet, Loki.”

She could feel his gulp against her palm. “You’re not fucking me yet, _Natasha_.”

Her lips twitched into a smile. “I’ll remember your offer for later. I think I’d like listening to you tell me in detail how much you need something up your ass.”

“So many things you’ve set aside for later. I would hate for you to lose track.”

“Not a problem. I have a long memory.”

When she let go of his throat, he moaned softly, a protest that she ignored, instead turning her attention to his ass. She spread his cheeks until she could see his hole. It was tight and wrinkled, only slightly darker than the rest of his pale skin. She gathered saliva in her mouth and spat.

Loki gave a full-body jerk and a not-quite-yelp that said he hadn’t been expecting that. She waited a moment, but he kept his face down. A good sign, she thought, if he didn’t want her to see his reaction.

She slipped her index finger into her mouth, wet it from knuckle to tip, and then decided to add her middle one as well. He’d wanted her strap-on dry last time, so she was willing to bet he’d be able to handle two spit-soaked fingers to start.

And he could. Not only could he handle them, but he sighed for them—a noise of breathy relief that reminded her of someone sinking their aching muscles into a warm bath. He was tense, clamping almost painfully down on her, which made him feel even tighter. He wanted it to hurt, she realized, and ignored his prostate entirely, focusing on the stretch and the friction.

By the time she spat again and added a third finger, his sighs had become moans: a throaty “uhnn” every time she thrust in and an “ahh” every time she withdrew.

“Loki,” she said warningly, but he only whimpered and rocked against her hand. Trying to take her deeper, maybe, although it wasn’t possible. Her fingers were only so long. Perhaps it was good that she had nothing bigger to offer him; he’d probably get so loud that all of Wakanda would hear.

His cry was tortured and beautiful when she withdrew completely. She changed positions, knee-walking to his side, and replaced her fingers in his asshole at the same time that she forced three fingers of her free hand into his mouth. He accepted them eagerly, slathering them with his tongue, groaning around them.

“Shh,” she said. “Quiet.”

From this angle, she had to hook her fingers in his ass, stretching his rim wider. She couldn’t imagine the burn. Couldn’t imagine how he was still moaning, writhing against the bed, like this was all he’d ever wanted.

“I’m starting to think you want someone to hear you,” she said, and realized his cries had hushed slightly while she’d spoken. He wanted to hear her. _Keep talking._ “Is that it, Loki? You want the guards to come running? Clint? Steve? You want them all to stand in the door and watch you, the god who wielded an Infinity Gauntlet and saved our asses, getting finger-fucked from both ends like a whore?”

He’d quieted himself to panting, open-mouthed with his tongue extended, Natasha’s fingers drenched in his spit. She half wondered if he’d gotten them so wet on purpose, if he hoped that she’d fuck his ass with those too.

On that thought, she hooked a fourth finger into his hole. Her pinkie, so it was small, but it was also dry and he was already stretched so wide. He let out a broken wail and closed his mouth around her fingers, sucking them almost desperately, like he was trying to be good and quiet as she’d told him.

“Does that hurt?” she asked.

Loki nodded. His eyes were squeezed shut, his face lifted, his back curved so that his ass was up and practically begging for her to keep going.

“But you like it, don’t you?”

Another nod, followed by a head bob that jabbed her fingertips to the back of his throat, making him gag.

“Good boy.”

He whined and shivered, and did it again.

Natasha was wet by then. So, so wet that it was tempting to leave him hanging and deal with herself instead.

_Fuck it_ , she thought. _Why shouldn’t I?_

She removed the fingers from his ass first, smothering his unhappy cry with the ones in his mouth before she slipped those free as well. “On your knees. Ass up.”

He obeyed immediately, almost scrambling as he lifted himself to his hands and knees. Not quite the position she’d had in mind, but it would do.

She remembered frotting against his ass before, finding the pressure surprisingly good, owing to his slight boniness. Apparently he remembered too, since the moment she knelt behind him, he was groaning approvingly, dropping his head and shoulders to the bed so he could use all his upper body strength to shove back against her groin. She gripped his hips, guided his movements, so he was rubbing exactly where she wanted him.

The pleasure wasn’t as strong, somehow, when she was nude, and she ended up humping one ass cheek more than the other. It didn’t feel especially graceful or dignified, probably didn’t look it either, but then again, she didn’t care. No one could see her; Loki’s head was lowered, his strangled moans muffled by the sheets he’d buried his face in.

She ground herself against him hurriedly, with purpose, wasting no time drawing it out. Soon enough, the slide of her clit along her slick labia and the delicious, firm pressure of his ass had her tensing and gasping as she came.

“Stop,” she said, and again he complied instantly, remaining motionless as she rocked gently against him, teasing every last aftershock her body had to give.

When she was finished, she reached around him, grasped his cock—and found it soft and sticky. She stroked, judging the wetness and finding it too thick for precome, and Loki whimpered and squirmed at her touch.

She let go and eased away from him. “When did that happen?” she asked, sitting on her knees near his feet.

She thought he was beyond answering, he stayed still and silent so long, but then he inhaled and lifted himself slowly, gingerly to his forearms. “Not terribly long ago,” he muttered, not looking at her.

When she had been rubbing herself against him, then. He hadn’t moved his hands from where they’d been near his head, so he hadn’t jerked himself off.

“Magic?” She knew he had it; he’d mentioned using it sexually on her once or twice, although she hadn’t taken him up on the offer.

The glance he shot her over his shoulder was so venomous that it had to be masking something else. Embarrassment, she suspected, which was as good of an answer in itself. “Does it matter?”

It didn’t, really, except that it was interesting and made her wonder what the trigger had been. The residual feeling of penetration? The soreness? Did he just fetishize getting his ass fucked that much?

He’d come without permission too, and she considered chastising him but decided against it. Not tonight. Chastisement begat punishment, and she’d already wasted enough time with him that she could’ve spent catching up on sleep.

“All right,” she said mildly. “Then I guess we’re done here.”

She expected him to question that, maybe snark at her some more, but he only looked at her for a few seconds, his expression unreadable, and then vanished in a shimmer of gold. The sheets were rumpled where he had lain, but he’d left no stains or wet spots.

She stretched out again, on her stomach, on top of the covers, the same position as before—as though Loki had never been there at all—and this time when she drifted off to sleep, nothing disturbed her.


End file.
